"Plainly? or with artistic indirectness?"
"Plainly."
Lola looked at him incredulously, but saw that he was telling the truth.
"The sly thing!" she exclaimed under her breath. "But tell her again! I declare if I were a man and loved Elise—and I would love none else—I'd tell her so every time I saw her."
"Oh I'll not love another—no fear of that," Evans replied half lightly; "but as for telling her again, self-respect will not—"
"Self-respect—fudge! If I loved a girl I'd tell her so a hundred times—and marry her too—in spite of everything."
"Perhaps so," Evans commented skeptically.
Lola was shooting in the dark, but her warm heart would not let her leave the matter at rest. Both because of her desire, being happily in love herself, to see the love affairs of her friends go smoothly, and because of the riddle it presented to her, she approached Elise again in order to straighten out the tangled skein for everybody's satisfaction. She thought to match her wits against Elise's and proceeded with more caution.
"By the way, Elise," she said, apropos of nothing at all, "I think you were right about Senator Rutledge's being very much in love with that young woman you told me about."
Elise exhibited a perfect indifference and said nothing.